Why it matters
Monks carry a coffin through the snow towards a ruined Gothic abbey, surrounded by bare oaks, as a newly dug grave opens in the foreground. Friedrich showed it at the Berlin Academy in 1810 together with The Monk by the Sea, and asked for it to be hung beneath that painting.
Did you know?
- It was painted in Dresden in 1809–1810.
- King Frederick William III bought both paintings.
- The two paintings still hang side by side in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
- More than two dozen of Friedrich's works include cemeteries or graves.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Abbey in the Oakwood (CC BY-SA 4.0).
